Hundreds packed the Tucker Middle School auditorium March 25 for a presentation on the creation of a new city of Lakeside. So many people attended the meeting that some were forced to sit on the auditorium stage to find a seat while another hundred stood in the back and along the sides of the auditorium. Some attending, including Nicole Yarab, with sign, and Norm Lessard, right foreground, objected to a proposal to divide the Tucker community by placing part in the new city and part outside.

Hundreds of residents packed a school auditorium to hear proposals for a new DeKalb city called Lakeside on the day legislation was introduced to create the new city.

But many in the standing-room-only crowd at Tucker Middle School on March 25 voiced disapproval of the plan, arguing it divided the Tucker community. The crowd grew so large that some members sat on the stage of the school auditorium.

Mary Kay Woodworth, chair of the Lakeside Community Alliance, told the group that Sen. Fran Millar had introduced “placeholder” legislation to create the proposed city. Residents of the area now can commission the Carl Vinson Institute at the University of Georgia to conduct a study of the feasibility of starting a city in the area, she said.

“If the feasibility study comes back and says it makes no sense to do this … the effort goes away,” she said.

Woodworth said the city, as intially proposed, would have a population of about 60,000. Maps distributed during the meeting showed the city would be bounded roughly by I-85 to the north, I-285 or Morningside Village Lane to the east and North Druid Hills Road and Lawrenceville Highway to the south and North Druid Hills Road to the west.

Some in the crowd applauded the proposal. But others booed or shouted “no” at points in the presentations.

Bob Dallas of Dunwoody told the crowd that the question voters need to ask themselves was what they wanted their community to be in the future.